The Mindful Hack is a Web log of Denyse O'Leary, co-author of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (HarperOne August 2007). The Mindful Hack publishes information of interest on the relationship between the mind and the brain. O'Leary also publishes the Post-Darwinist, which keeps up with the intelligent design controversy.

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Monday, July 21, 2008

Book review: Hunting, herding, hiding, and hustling - that explains our social relationships?

In "The Synapse and the Soul" in Wall Street Journal online, Adam Keiper, editor of The New Atlantis and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center reviews popular materialist neuroscience book Human, by Michael S. Gazzaniga (July 8, 2008).

Remarkably, Keiper "gets it" about what is wrong with most of that stuff, when offering cautions regarding Gazzeous views:

"All those social relationships we now worry about so intensely," he writes, "are merely byproducts of behavior originally selected to avoid our being eaten by predators." Our social instincts were formed by "hunting, herding, hiding, and hustling." Mr. Gazzaniga even takes a stab at explaining the supposed biological origins of religious belief, although that section of his argument is (blessedly) brief. In essence, he claims that religious practices and beliefs satisfy certain "moral modules" – innate affinities for things like hierarchy, purity and coalitions.

So where are these "moral modules?" Isn't this just another way of talking nonsense? Keiper notes,

Mr. Gazzaniga does little to explore the implications of the research he describes. Once we have been armed with the latest scientific findings about how our brains came to be and how they function, how ought we to act? The findings of neuroscience do not immediately penetrate to the most intimate levels of personal experience. If you are scared of heights, it will make you no less afraid to hear that the "actual cause" of your feeling is a catecholamine rush. But neuroscience is increasingly playing a role in marketing, education and the law, and Mr. Gazzaniga offers no insights into whether this growing influence is justified or appropriate.

He dismisses Gazzaniga as "far too credulous," and I agree.

Scared of heights? Toronto Christians have a practical approach to "scared of heights." Our CN Tower is the world's tallest freestanding structure. It has a glass floor - and now even glass elevator floor panels. But there is still an infamous glass floor 322 m above Toronto. Children tumble and laugh over it; many adults can't put a foot forward on it.

Until they get down on their knees. Then they can manage.

So we say, you think there is a God? If so, remember, the first thing you do when you are in trouble is, ... Find knees! Use knees!